We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change admitted at a news conference in Brussels in February 2015 that the goal of environmental activists was not to save the world from ecological calamity --- but to destroy capitalism.

"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution."

The way this storm was over-hyped says asomething about climate change hype. New technologies allow ppl to detect "extremes" that would have gone unnoticed years ago - like 185 mph eyewall winds while the storm was in the middle of nowhere. Nobody would have know about that and the storm would have gone down in the history books as a cat-3 in the Caribbean and a 1 or 2 in Florida.

Couple weeks ago there was hype about "surface melting" all over Greenland. It was likely the result of a few unseasonably warm & sunny days. Would have gone completely unnoticed until recently.

Forest, it is called "/greenland" because of less ice in the past. "Climate change" has made it colder since the medieval warm period (when it was muvch hotter than now), so "greenland" is more icy than it was. This is one reason the global carbon taxers switched to "climate change" from "global warming", because it is colder now.

A solar minimum is approaching, which will cool the earth, and further increase the ice on "greenland".

That is not correct. Greenland icecap temperature are now warmer than during the Medieval. Nor were global temperatures as warm. as today.

jaybird: This is one reason the global carbon taxers switched to "climate change" from "global warming", because it is colder now.

Both terms are still in use, but mean different things. The globe is warming, that is, the global mean surface temperature is increasing. This is resulting in regional changes in climate. The former is quite well established, though the rate of warming is still subject to some uncertainty. The latter problem is highly chaotic, and still somewhat intractable.

There is no perfect temperature; however, stability is preferred because the infrastructure of human civilization depends on such stability. For instance, large populations of humans live near sea level.

The gains and losses of climate change are a matter of great discussion among scholars. In particular, some countries may benefit from global warming, such as Russia, at least in the short term, or seek to benefit from the ensuing social chaos. Other countries, such as the U.S., may think that adaptation is in their best interest, at least in the short run, even if other countries are severely damaged in the process. However, the long term danger remains. The political problem is getting universal agreement when there are many motivations to take advantage. That's why the Paris Agreement was considered such an important step, and why withdrawing from the Paris Agreement was considered such a bad mistake.

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